StoreDot smartphone battery recharges in 30 seconds

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How long does it take to charge your smartphone? A couple of hours? Wouldn’t it be awesome if it only took around 30 seconds? StoreDot’s prototype battery can do just that.

The Israeli startup has several challenges to overcome before the new battery and charger are ready for mass production. The size needs to be reduced, for one thing: StoreDot is currently much larger than even a third-party expanded battery pack for the Galaxy S4. Capacity is also an issue: StoreDot can’t compete with even the OEM GS4 battery in its current form. The charger needs some tweaking, too. It’s currently the size of a laptop adapter, and that certainly isn’t an EC-sanctioned micro USB plug delivering current to the phone.

Still, what’s shown in the company’s YouTube demo is pretty impressive. In just 30 seconds, the StoreDot goes from around 20% to fully charged.

The rapid charging is made possible by bio-organic “nanotdots” in the battery’s electrode and electrolyte. While the nanodots allow for blazing-fast recharging, they also ensure that the StoreDot battery discharges at the same rate as today’s lithium-ion batteries.

StoreDot believes that they can have the battery and charger ready for consumers by 2016. They’ve got an unnamed major Asian smartphone manufacturer interested in the technology and recently secured $6 million in funding to refine their prototype and work on creating aftermarket StoreDot batteries that we can swap into the phones we already own.